Question

Topic: E-Marketing

B2b Online Registration Follow-up Best Practices

Posted by jmenet on 10/15/2008 at 4:27 PM ET 500 Points
B2B firm with complex sale and long sales cycle regularly produces educational research reports and white papers. Our sales-centric nature means that sales gets what they want. In this case, they want to review and manually screen all online registrants before fulfilling their requests (to be sure the info doesn't get into the hands of competitors). This process can take days or weeks - not exactly pleasing in this "instant gratification" world.

Can anyone point me to solid statistics illustrating why we should allow the white papers to be sent automatically, upon completion of the registration form.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 10/15/2008 at 4:44 PM Accepted
    In general, if you're always worried about 'but what if our competitors see?' you'll never get anywhere.

    However, if you're really concerned about it you have a few options. The first would be to have the white paper sending be a manual process; that is, when someone clicks the link on your website it sends an email to someone in sales, who then chooses whether to forward the document.
    The other choice you may not have access to depending on your system, but you could program it not to send to addresses @yourcompetitor.com - this is limiting, however, as most would just request using a gmail, yahoo, etc. account.

    I find in most industries you just want to employ enough resources to be the industry leader and not worry too much about what your competition is doing, whether they can see your information, etc. (And really, what would be so bad about your competitors seeing your white paper? There is probably no novel information in there for them.) Assuming you have a normal number of requests for this document, though, it probably won't be too hard to have someone handle the requests manually.
  • Posted by wnelson on 10/15/2008 at 5:03 PM Accepted
    Jennifer,

    I know of no such study specifically on why white papers should be sent automatically. However, with your complex selling process and long selling cycle, is "speed" a major factor with respect to having to manually screen the inquiries? If so, then a business case showing the potential loss of customers because of the slow response and the cost savings of not having someone do it manually may help. If speed isn't a big factor, then let sales do it manually. One purpose of having white papers (besides showing your expertise and slant prospects toward your products/services) is to have prospects register so sales can have leads to follow. These leads should be sorted for priority and there will be no automatic way to do this. The sales sort takes on this purpose too.

    I agree with Sarah that the concerns you are placing on competitors "getting their hands" on your research reports and white papers. There are so many ways to get hold of them ranging from registering under fictitious names to having other people acquire them to asking your (best) customers for a copy of them. Don't your sales people do all of these things to get hold of your competitors' information?

    You could demonstrate this by registering under a fictitious name and getting hold of the papers.

    I hope this helps.

    Wayde
  • Posted by arthursc on 10/15/2008 at 5:17 PM Accepted
    No stats to present, but a few comments.

    We all use white papers as lead gen. That's in a customer-centric realm. As such, downloaders expect, and in all circumstances I am aware of, get the download instantly, via a link on a conf page or in a conf email. To delay the process or put up roadblocks would only annoy and turn off potential customers. Seriously.

    As to competitive intel, if that's a concern don't put proprietary info in the white paper, or as sfowler says just don't worry about it. Competitors can find a way to get the white paper even with a proper vetting cycle.

    So I think you're sales-centric team needs to understand what customer-centric means, and if you offer a white paper, give it to the reader without delay and don't shoot yourselves in the feets.

    Having said that, if the value of the info in the white paper supports it, you can certainly make the screening process or reg form tighter by adding questions/fields. But even there be careful. Too many fields will also turn off folks. For every add'l field in a form for a free offer, you can expect to lose up to 30% of potential responses (the exception being in, for instance, a controlled circulation periodical qual form). Unique value gives you a little more leeway but be aware of the dangers. On the other hand, too little screening can open you up to freebie surfers and get you dead leads. You can of course test all this, and you should.

    Your query raises a related question. Are you requiring a registration to the site to get the whitepaper? Just the fact of that might deter potential customers. If you are, you might want to test disconnecting site reg from the download offer.



  • Posted by jmenet on 10/15/2008 at 5:26 PM Author
    Thank you Wayde and Sarah for your responses. I agree that we shouldn't be concerned with allowing competitors to get the research reports/white papers. The problem is, my sales team has a different point of view. I've pleaded this case with sales without success so far. Since we are B2B and our clients are not typically small enough to have a yahoo or gmail account, they even deny those requests assuming it might be a competitor in disguise.

    At the end of the month I will be proposing a marketing plan to promote an upcoming proprietary research report for which we expect to receive over 1,000 requests. The plan will include a recommendation to auto-fulfill requests (behind a registration form and possibly two or three qualifying questions). It would really be nice to have some statistics around what happens when the request takes an hour vs. a day or even a week to fulfill (how the potential lead gets colder and they may even develop a negative perception of the company, service, etc).

    I like the idea to have sales manually screen the requests as they wish, but make the process such that it happens on a daily basis. That way we can at least send the paper within 24 hours.

    Thanks again. Any other information you come across is greatly appreciated.
  • Posted by Mikee on 10/15/2008 at 5:31 PM Member
    No ideas about studies, but just some thoughts.

    As a potential customer I would be really turned off to wait for a white paper. I would wonder what is taking so long, and if you can't even let me download a paper how will you be able to give me customer support or deliver your product/support on time. People do expect things instantly. If you can't deliver it they will go elsewhere.

    You can not worry about your competitors "getting" your whitepapers. Once the paper is delivered it could end up anywhere. Is what you provide in a whitepaper really that valuable to your competitor? Your competitors are going to get a hold of these things whether you like it or not. There is no sense in annoying potential clients while trying to protect something that you really do not have control over.

    Make the customers and potential customers happy, and do not worry about the competitor. If you provide a top quality product/service at a good value with good customer service your competitor should not be your concern.

    Just my thoughts,

    Mike
  • Posted by jmenet on 10/15/2008 at 5:32 PM Author
    Thank you arthursc. Yes, we do put the papers behind a registration form. Althought it does depress response, maybe adding a few questions is a viable option as you suggest. It probably won't depress response as much as we kill leads by delaying fulfillment.
  • Posted on 10/16/2008 at 8:51 AM Member
    A note to your sales about denying requests to Yahoo/Gmail accounts:
    Many businesses (mine included) usually use a free email account (in my case, Yahoo) for site registrations, so all the possible ensuing spam doesn't clog our regular email servers. I know plenty of businesses who use this practice.
    For example, our sales all have Google Alerts set up (relevant keywords, competitors' names, etc.), and there is no resulting spam, just a high volume of messages; but they're sent to each salesperson's personal GMail account (which they all have because we use GTalk for internal communication), not their company email.
    There's a high possibility your sales' fear of competitors is costing you sales.
  • Posted on 10/17/2008 at 1:27 PM Member
    Your competitors can get your information by using fake addresses. In fact, they probably already have it. So stop wasting time and annoying your potential customers.

    You are better off trying to attract thousands of people into your business by opening up your content than trying to restrict it. The one who's ideas spread fastest and furthest.
  • Posted by jmenet on 10/17/2008 at 2:13 PM Author
    Thank you all for your responses. I have found my answer. To mvolpe - I appreciate you taking the time to respond; however, you have just stated the obvious. I was after stats to support my argument.
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